… or maybe an episode in a television series?I had an interesting chat with Leanna last night. We had saddled up in our cowgirl threads and joined Magi & Naz over at Black Horse for some country & western dancing.

We started talking about our second lives and she was questioning if it is really worth spending so much time here. Considering I had recently taken a Second Life timeout, I knew exactly what she meant and had put a lot of thought into this question.

I told Leanna that I keep coming back to SL because I still find it entertaining, although that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always fun. I explained an idea I’ve had from all the way back to my first year in SL; that is, I see my second life as something like a movie. The difference is, each of us is the star of our own movie.

Leanna picked up on this quickly and we even considered that our second lives were more like a television series. And that idea evolved to look at each logon as a new episode in the series. I think both of us found this point of view brings some clarity to all the drama that goes on here.

When you sit down in a movie theater or in front of your television, you watch a story that you cannot control and which you have no idea how it will end. If you choose to suspend disbelief, you can go to incredible places of imagery and drama. And if you are like most people, you can be completely engaged in the adventure and drama.

In Second Life, it’s like being in a movie but you do have some control over the story because you are interacting with others. You can’t control what others will do, but you can control what you will do. And if you choose, just like in the movies — to suspend disbelief — you can experience some amazing adventure and drama. And if you are lucky, you can have some wonderful romance too. However, the problem with being the hero or heroine of your own movie is, it hurts a lot when there’s an unhappy ending.

And so our chat went. This morning I’ve had some time to consider this idea some more and I’ve decided to write more posts about this in the coming days.